The Algerian President, Abdelmadjid Tebboune has announced plans by his government to introduce monthly youth unemployment benefits.
This is even as the North African nation grapples with an unemployment rate of almost 15 per cent.
This is way behind Africa’s largest country, Nigeria with an unemployed tally of more than 50% of its 200milion population.
Speaking on Algerian television as quoted on Arab news, Tebboune said the beneficiaries are job seekers within the ages of 19 and 40 adding that the payment would begin in March.
He said those who are eligible will be able to collect the payments of about $100 (N41,576) a month, as well as some medical benefits, until they find work.
The payments will be made “to preserve the dignity of young people,” Tebboune said.
The allowance is equivalent to nearly two-thirds the minimum wage of 20,000 dinars ($142).
It will be accompanied by medical benefits, while some taxes on consumer products will also be suspended, the president had stated.
Meanwhile, the president claimed that Algeria was the first country outside Europe to introduce such a benefit.
Algeria, Africa’s biggest gas exporter with around 45 million people, earns some 90 percent of its state revenues from hydrocarbons.
In November, lawmakers voted to scrap generous state subsidies on basic goods that had long helped maintain social peace, but that had strained state budgets as energy revenues fell.